Governments must empower women for full recovery – UN report by DESA / UN Population Fund 2:16am 22nd Oct, 2010   20 October 2010    Discrimination against women not only exposes them to the worst effects of disaster and war, including rape, but also deprives their countries of a prime engine for recovery, according to a new United Nations report launched today.    The release of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) State of World Population 2010 report – From Conflict and Crisis to Renewal: Generations of Change – coincides with the 10th anniversary of the Security Council’s landmark resolution 1325, which aimed to end sexual violence against women and girls in armed conflict andWhile women rarely wage war, they suffer the worst of its consequences, and when it comes time to wage peace women are too often denied a place at the negotiating table to encourage greater participation by them in peace-building initiatives.    “This year’s report is about the three Rs: resilience, renewal and redefining roles between boys and girls and men and women,” UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid said at the official launch in London of the report, which uses stories of individuals affected by conflict or catastrophe in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Haiti, Iraq, Jordan, Liberia, the occupied Palestinian territory, Timor-Leste and Uganda to bring home its message.    It shows how communities and civil society are healing old wounds and moving forward, while stressing how much more still needs to be done to ensure that women have access to services and have a voice in peace deals or reconstruction plans.    The case examples are the first time the annual study has been based on reports from the field to show how countries that have experienced conflict or disasters are on the road to recovery, however rocky the path and uncertain the destination.    Ms. Obaid underscored “the devastating and unacceptable sexual violence” in countries affected by conflict. “As an international community, we have not been able to prevent this crime and human rights violation. This report calls for urgent and concerted action to protect women, prevent sexual violence, stop impunity, and bring justice,” she said.    “But the report shows that recovery from conflict and disaster also presents a unique opportunity, an opportunity to rectify inequalities, ensure equal protection under the law, and create space for positive change.”    A principal recommendation is that Governments need to seize the opportunities arising out of post-conflict or post-disaster recovery to increase the chances that countries “are not just rebuilt, but built back better and renewed, with women and men on equal footing, with rights and opportunities for all and a foundation for development and security in the long run.”    In the foreword to the report, Ms. Obaid highlighted that gender-based violence, including rape, is “a repugnant and increasingly familiar weapon of war,” stressing that women are disempowered by rape or the threat of it, and by the HIV infection, trauma and disabilities that often result from it.    “Girls are disempowered when they cannot go to school because of the threat of violence, when they are abducted or trafficked, or when their families disintegrate or must flee. In some conflicts, men are also disempowered by sexual violence. Boys, too, are sometimes exploited or forced to become soldiers,” she wrote.    At a news conference at UN Headquarters in New York, report editor Richard Kollodge stressed how important women’s empowerment is in renewal after conflict and natural disaster. “While women rarely wage war, they suffer the worst of its consequences, and when it comes time to wage peace women are too often denied a place at the negotiating table,” he said.    The publication’s lead author Barbara Crossette said she was struck by how long it takes to achieve improvement in the 10 years since the Council resolution was passed.    “From the field there have been many positive steps but also persistent problems… human beings that continue to have trauma, there are women who are in psychoanalysis, being medically treated for years, and the violence has not stopped,” she told the reporters.    Oct 2010    Violence against women a global phenomenon.    Violence against women remains widespread across the world, exacerbated by traditions and customary practices that determine the way women are treated in families, places of work and communities, according to a United Nations report unveiled today.    The scourge “is an obstacle to the achievement of the objectives of equality, development and peace,” according to The World’s Women 2010: Trends and Statistics, published by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA).    “In all societies, to a greater or lesser degree. The low social and economic status of women can be both a cause and a consequence of this violencee, women and girls are subjected to physical, sexual and psychological abuse that cuts across lines of income, class and culture. The low social and economic status of women can be both a cause and a consequence of this violence,” the report, whose release coincided with the first-ever UN World Statistics Day, notes.    The publication also provides the latest data on the status of women in the areas of population, health, education, work, power and decision-making, environment and poverty.    “This 2010 report finds overall progress in many areas, including school enrolment, health, as wells as economic participation, but it makes it very clear that much more needs to be done to close the gender gap in public life and to prevent many forms of violence against women,” Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development, at the launch of the report in New York.    Other highlights of the report include the fact that there are approximately 57 million more men than women in the world, with some regions having less numbers of men and others lower numbers of women. Europe in general has more women than men, while the ratio in China is 108 men per 100 women.    “The trend of women marrying later and later continues throughout the world. This has obvious consequences for fertility which has declined globally to 2.5 births per woman,” said Mr. Sundaram.    “But there are parts of the world where women marry early and bear more than five children on average. This has the effect of diminishing opportunities for women in education, employment and life chances,” he added.    According to the new publication, in the realm of health, women are more likely than men to die from heart diseases globally. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 270,000 maternal deaths in 2005 – half of the world’s deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth – were recorded, despite increases in the proportion of women receiving prenatal care.    Globally, the rate of girls of primary school age enrolled in school increased from 79 to 86 per cent between 1999 and 2007, with Central and Western African regions having the world’s lowest rates with less than 60 per cent of primary-school age girls enrolled.    The report also notes that while more women between the ages of 25 and 54 are working in most regions as compared to 1990, women’s wages represent between 70 and 90 per cent of the wages of their male counterparts.    Their participation in decision-making remains an area of concern, according to the report. In 2009, for example, only 14 women in the world held the positions of head of State or government, and out of the world’s 500 largest corporations, only 13 had female chief executive officers.    The publication also shows that households with single mothers with young children are more likely to be poor than those of lone fathers with young children, and that existing laws limit women’s access to land and other property in most countries in Africa and roughly half of the countries in Asia.    Srdjan Mrkic, head of DESA’s Social Statistics Section, noted that there have been improvements in the collection of data on the status of women around the world, but more needed to be done on that score.    “In preparing the World’s Women 2010 report, we were hampered by the fact that adequate and comparable statistics in certain domains are not routinely available for many countries,” he told reporters at the publication’s launch.    Also unveiled today was a UN Population Fund (UNFPA) report, entitled State of World Population 2010, which found that discrimination against women not only exposes them to the worst effects of disaster and war, but also deprives their countries of a prime engine for recovery, according to a new United Nations report launched today.    “This year’s report is about the three Rs: resilience, renewal and redefining roles between boys and girls and men and women,” UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid said at the official launch in London of the report, which uses stories of individuals affected by conflict or catastrophe in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Haiti, Iraq, Jordan, Liberia, the occupied Palestinian territory, Timor-Leste and Uganda to bring home its message.    It shows how communities and civil society are healing old wounds and moving forward, while stressing how much more still needs to be done to ensure that women have access to services and have a voice in peace deals or reconstruction plans. 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